Mumbai, June 5 -- On a humid evening in Mumbai, as Air India's widebody aircraft prepare for their overnight departures to London, New York and Frankfurt, the cargo holds below the passenger cabins are filled with an unlikely but eagerly awaited traveller: boxes of carefully packed mangoes, their fragrance contained but unmistakable.

Each year, as India's summer ripens, this ritual resumes. In 2026, the scale has been striking.

According to the release, between March and May 2026, Air India transported more than 3,300 tonnes of fresh produce across its network.

Over 1,000 tonnes of that cargo consisted of mangoes, the fruit that occupies a near-mythic place in India's culinary and cultural imagination, and an equally cherished one amon...